We’re on our way up today, fellow EFLers! The high in Dundee is supposed to be 114 degrees (see above). Melanie wants to attend church later this morning, outdoors in the sun, rather than via zoom from the coolth of our AC-ed house. I can’t be the wimp and not go along… but I’m already sweating in the shade of our westward-facing back porch. Let’s all pray for Melanie to hear a word from God before we have to leave at 10:30.
EFL Standings for 2021
| EFL | ||||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB | RS | RA |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 55 | 23 | .707 | — | 451.4 | 290.2 |
| D.C. Balk | 49 | 23 | .675 | 3.5 | 398.8 | 276.7 |
| Kaline Drive | 50 | 27 | .652 | 4.4 | 404.7 | 294.5 |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 50 | 28 | .647 | 4.7 | 380.6 | 282.0 |
| Peshastin Pears | 49 | 27 | .650 | 4.8 | 362.5 | 268.4 |
| Haviland Dragons | 47 | 30 | .615 | 7.3 | 375.9 | 305.3 |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 44 | 28 | .614 | 8 | 368.0 | 297.2 |
| Cottage Cheese | 41 | 36 | .529 | 14 | 418.1 | 405.6 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 39 | 36 | .523 | 14.5 | 372.7 | 354.6 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 37 | 38 | .500 | 16.2 | 304.4 | 308.1 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 33 | 43 | .434 | 21.2 | 387.5 | 451.1 |
Old Detroit: L, 2 – 3. (51 PA, .209, .333, .279; 2 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA) The Wolverines teetered on the brink of two losses yesterday. Today they took a feather-touch to the shoulder… and toppled over for that second loss. Logan Gilbert was off to a good start before Chicago rain suspended his game. Woeverine hitters continued their sudden, team-wide slump, with Carlos Correa’s homer the only extra-base hit of the day, and Adolis Garcia’s 2 for 3 with 2 walks offering a small bright spot.
DC: W, 12 – 5. (38 PA, .310, .421, .655; 6 ip, 3 er, 4.50 ERA). The Balk continued their assault on the citadel with adequate pitching and outstanding hitting. Joey Gallo homered twice and walked twice, and Xander Bogaerts tried to absorb all the hits and almost succeeded (3 for 4 with a double) so there wouldn’t be any left over for Rafael Devers (1 for 3).
Kaline: W 1, L 1; 12 – 12. (62 PA, .320, .403, .400; 8.3 ip, 7 er, 7.59 ERA). A solid day at the plate, featuring 16 hits, 8 walks and a hbp — but only a Winker homer and an Adames double for extra bases. Dinelson Lamet continued his nightmare season, going just 2.1 innings with 4 earned runs allowed before being removed from the game due to a loss in velocity. JT Brubaker did better — 6 ip, 3 er — to limit the damage in the standing to 0.1 game v. the Wolverines… although how the Drive can feel Flinty breath on their backs…
Flint Hill: W, 9 – 3. (41 PA, .351, .390, .676; 19 ip, 4 er, 1.89 ERA). I’m guessing this is more like what the Tornados were expecting from this roster: lots of shutdown pitching and lots smashdown offense. Teoscar Hernandez hit a homer and singled, putting him back in the news after a long absence, and Paul Goldschmidt did the same (but added a walk). Bo Bichette settled for two double among his 3 for 5 results. (The team totaled 6 doubles. ) Like the Balk, the Tornadoes gained another half-game on Old Detroit, and slipped past…
Peshastin: “L”, 4 – 1. ( 26 PA, .136, .269, .409; 7.3 ip, 1 er, 1.23 ERA) … Peshastin into fourth place. The Pears were reduced to counting on Mike Zunino for their offensive highlight (a homer), with Jazz Chisholm adding a triple, and Juan Soto a double — but those were the only base hits all day for the team.
Fortunately for the planet’s Pear fans, the pitching was certainly Pesty. Alex Wood allowed the only earned run as part of his 5.3 innings, and two relievers tacked on a scoreless inning apiece. This propelled the Pears 0.3 games closer to the Wolverines, and kept the upstart Tornados from running away from them.
Haviland: W 0, L 2; 6 – 12. (35 PA, .103, .257, .138; 2 ip, 0 er, 0 ERA). Seven of Nine Dragon batters went hitless (although three of the seven did draw a walk and Ramon Laureano also got hit by a pitch). The little bit of pitching was very good, but it was a very little bit, especially with a double-header to cover, allowing a small drift of 5.4 replacement innings into the stat sheet.
The poor result dropped the Dragons another 0.5 games adrift of the Wolverines. It’s gotten so bad that Haviland is now 2.5 games behind the fifth-place Pears, and only .7 games in front of the Kangaroos.
Here’s the grouping that makes sense to me:
The Leader: Old Detroit, currently in a tailspin.
Gap — 3.5 games
The Peleton (1.3 games wide): DC, Kaline, Flint Hill, Peshastin. These teams are still making a race of it, still well within range of the front — although Kaline is threatening to leave the rest of the Peleton behind.
Gap: 2.5 games
The Lurkers (0.7 game span): Haviland, Canberra. These teams are still on the fringes of the pennant race. Teams do come from this far behind and win sometimes. Of these two, the Kangaroos are playing the best right now and thus are a little more alarming to team higher in the standings.
Gap: 6 games
The Cagey Veterans (0.5 games span): Cottage, Pittsburgh. These two teams hold, among them, almost half the EFL championships. True, Pittsburgh has done more of that outstanding work than the Cheese have… These teams are working to stay above .500 but I assume they are consigning their championship chances this year to a truly miraculous (and / or catastrophic) divine intervention.
Gaplet: 1.7 games
The Cagey “Newbie”: The Cascades present an analytical problem. It’s clear they’ve figured out the nuances of this league. They dwelt in the cellar for most of the season, but lately have been keeping up with the Leader and gaining steadily on the Cagey Veterans, which shouldn’t be happening if those Veterans are so Cagey — unless the relatively new Cascades have a caginess prodigy at the helm. Which it looks like they do. My prediction: it won’t be long; it might be still in the waning days of June, when we’ll look up and find the Cascades in the middle of the Cagey ones.
Gap: 5 games
The Rearguard: Actually, the Wolverines and the Rosebuds are like the Dunedin, the Rangers of Middle Earth, one out front leading the group through the wilderness, the other at the rear fending off perils from the rear. The Rearguard in this tableau is the Portland Rosebuds, all that stands between us and the misery of the Diamondbacks.
Canberra: W, 5 – 2. (28 PA, .217, .321, .478; 6 ip, 1 er, 1.50 ERA). I am writing this not in some idyllic locale where the skies are partly cloudy and the temperature is a nice morning 64 degrees (the current conditions in Golden, Colorado). Nor am I even on Whidbey Island, where the temperature now is a comfortable 78 degrees, nor Bellingham where it’s 82 degrees. That’s what it was out here on my back deck when I first sat down to write this update. Now it’ 88 degrees in the shade, having gone up 2 degrees in the last 10 minutes, and I’m starting to simmer in my own sweat. I need to blast out the rest of this update at a quicker pace.
Canberran hitters did a nice job, albeit a bit shorthanded again. Vladdy homered again (yawn) and was joined this time by Manuel Margot. Everyone reached base safely at least once; in Vladdy’s case his two walks made three times on base for the day. Probably most encouraging for the Cannies was Casey Mize’s 6 ip, 1 er contribution.
Cottage: L, 6 – 14. (34 PA, .258, .324, .387; 5 ip, 9 er, 16.20 ERA). Yikes. Michael Fulmer triple chulked (1 ip, 3 er) and Alex Cobb was half that bad over 4 times as many innings (4 ip, 6 er) making for that nasty pitching line. It was a pitching line to crush the hopes of any team, and some of the Cheese were duly crushed. But not SuperShortstop Marcus Semien who clouted two doubles in 5 trips to the plate.
Pittsburgh: DNP, 1 – 2. (23 PA, .278, .435, .389; 7.7 ip, 2 er, 2.34 ERA) Not bad for an off-day. 5 walks in 23 plate appearances boosts the OBP nicely. Only two extra, both doubles, bases suppresses the SLG but leaves a daily OPS a healthy OPS-heavy .824. Fankie Montas didn’t dominate, but neither did he detonate (5 ip, 2 er). The Alleghenys rose another 0.2 games toward the top altitude in the EFL.
Bellingham: DNP, 0 – (-1). (30 PA, .310, .333, .483; 1 ip, 0 er, 0.00 ERA). Very thin pitching, but it was a day off so no harm done — in fact, some help, since the scoreless inning shaved more than half a run from the Bellingham runs allowed. The hitting was not spectacular but it was solid, given some welcome spice and color by DJ LeMahieu’s homer and three singles in 5 plate appearances.
Portland: L, 2 – 8. (32 PA, .207, .281, .207; no pitching). Without any pitching, and very little hitting, the Rosebuds were at the mercy of their foes. It is true that, of the 8 Rosebud hitters, 6 reached base safely, and three did so twice (Solak, Carlson and Gary Sanchez). But it was all singles and walks.
Combined MLB + EFL Standings for 2021
| AL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Old Detroit Wolverines | 55 | 23 | .707 | — |
| Flint Hill Tornadoes | 50 | 28 | .647 | 4.7 |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 47 | 31 | .603 | 8.2 |
| Boston Red Sox | 46 | 31 | .597 | 8.7 |
| New York Yankees | 40 | 36 | .526 | 14.2 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 39 | 36 | .520 | 14.7 |
| Baltimore Orioles | 24 | 53 | .312 | 30.7 |
| NL East | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| D.C. Balk | 49 | 23 | .675 | — |
| Canberra Kangaroos | 44 | 28 | .614 | 4.4 |
| New York Mets | 40 | 32 | .556 | 8.6 |
| Washington Nationals | 36 | 38 | .486 | 13.6 |
| Atlanta Braves | 36 | 40 | .474 | 14.6 |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 35 | 39 | .473 | 14.6 |
| Miami Marlins | 33 | 43 | .434 | 17.6 |
| AL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Chicago White Sox | 44 | 31 | .587 | — |
| Cleveland Indians | 41 | 32 | .562 | 2 |
| Pittsburgh Alleghenys | 39 | 36 | .523 | 4.8 |
| Bellingham Cascades | 37 | 38 | .500 | 6.5 |
| Kansas City Royals | 33 | 42 | .440 | 11 |
| Minnesota Twins | 32 | 43 | .427 | 12 |
| Detroit Tigers | 32 | 44 | .421 | 12.5 |
| NL Central | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 44 | 33 | .571 | — |
| Chicago Cubs | 42 | 35 | .545 | 2 |
| Cottage Cheese | 41 | 36 | .529 | 3.3 |
| Cincinnati Reds | 38 | 37 | .507 | 5 |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 37 | 40 | .481 | 7 |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 28 | 47 | .373 | 15 |
| AL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| Kaline Drive | 50 | 27 | .652 | — |
| Houston Astros | 48 | 29 | .623 | 2.2 |
| Haviland Dragons | 47 | 30 | .615 | 2.9 |
| Oakland A’s | 46 | 33 | .582 | 5.2 |
| Seattle Mariners | 40 | 37 | .519 | 10.2 |
| Los Angeles Angels | 36 | 40 | .474 | 13.7 |
| Texas Rangers | 29 | 48 | .377 | 21.2 |
| NL West | ||||
| TEAM | WINS | LOSSES | PCT. | GB |
| San Francisco Giants | 50 | 26 | .658 | — |
| Peshastin Pears | 49 | 27 | .650 | 0.6 |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 46 | 31 | .597 | 4.5 |
| San Diego Padres | 46 | 33 | .582 | 5.5 |
| Portland Rosebuds | 33 | 43 | .434 | 17 |
| Colorado Rockies | 31 | 46 | .403 | 19.5 |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 22 | 56 | .282 | 29 |
Melanie shows that the ascetic ideals of the Middle Ages are not yet all gone. Self-discipline for the sake of seeking God is a hard path, but leads to saints. The pastor of our church (me) is more of a modern hedonist and has canceled church altogether this morning.
These kind of spiritual disciplines are especially good for those who live the lives of the rich, such as the rich man who wouldn’t let Lazarus eat at his table, and those who bask at the top of the league standings.
We got to church right on time at
10:45. No one was there.
They’d cancelled plans for meeting in person. The memo went out Friday but neither Melanie nor I had got it. I logged onto the zoom feed on my phone and listened in all the way home, then attended the rest of the service from our 72 degree living room.
It’s 100 degrees out now, 12:15.
109 degrees now (5:10 PM), same as it was an hour ago. I suspect I missed the peak in the last hour.